Song of the Day: 'I've Always Been Crazy,' Waylon Jennings

I first heard Waylon Jennings the same way that you likely did. Every Friday night, the General Lee would freeze mid-air, and he'd tell me all about Bo and Luke and Daisy, and their lovable stupid nemesis Sheriff Rosco. At the time, I thought the Dukes (and Rosco, for that matter) were the height of cool, so I got the impression that the balladeer must be pretty cool, too. Plus, there was that gunslinging handle of his. How could a man named Waylon Jennings not be a train robber, or a bull wrestler, or a country singer?

Later, I learned that Jennings once backed up Buddy Holly. And while he was from the deepest, flattest Llano Estacado plains, he never got rock and roll out of his system. In the '70s, he personified the "outlaw" country movement, which didn't necessarily mean that he was doing anything illegal. It meant he wasn't going to use Music City session guys on his records; instead, he'd stay home and make them sound the way he wanted them to sound. In practice, that meant that they were too rocking for the comfort of the Nashville establishment. (Too honest, also.) Jennings was an excellent guitar player and a strong baritone singer as well, and he articulated a consistent, and iconoclastic, worldview. When he sang about being wild and crazy, as he often did, you didn't dare disbelieve him.

We're currently in the midst of a small but meaningful outlaw country revival. These days, country butt-kickers like Jamey Johnson and Dierks Bentley (who sings at Starland Ballroom tonight) work within the Nashville system. Jennings won the battle -- at great personal cost -- and now his successors are free to chase his ghost with major label backing. It's ironic, but unsurprising, that his is the name most frequently dropped in Music City circles. He wouldn't have changed if he could; fighting the system like a true modern-day Robin Hood.

Songs of the Day are posted weekdays at 3 p.m. For past Songs of the Day, click here.